Friday, April 4, 2008

Vox Day, writer of the excellent book The Irrational Atheist demonstrated that the atheistic claim that atheists are more law abiding than the religious was pure hokum. He acknowledged that whilst self identified atheists were not common in prison, those professing no religion, the numbers that the atheists rely on to bulk up their numbers in the face of religious out-numbering, were in fact far more numerous than they should be as a proportion of the population.

To test this myself I contacted the New Zealand corrections department and asked if they kept records of inmate's religious beliefs. I found that they did indeed and the statistics made interesting reading.

The statistics I received showed that out of a prison population of 8073 in June 2007, 3852 professed no religion and another 1984 gave no answer.

Even if only the smaller number is used almost 48% of the prison population could be described as atheists. In a country where the majority identify as Christian that is a disproportionate number.

According to Statistics New Zealand as of 2006 about 35% of New Zealanders identified themselves as having no religion.